The present invention relates generally to a system and method for searching for available appointment times for scheduling appointments in a health care environment, and more particularly to a system and method for reducing the steps involved in searching for available appointment times using a variety of dynamic appointment options via a plurality of predefined searches for scheduling appointments at the most appropriate appointment times.
Computer programs for appointment scheduling are well known in the art. According to usual procedures, appointments are scheduled by office personnel in response to contacts from patients wanting to schedule appointments. Various computerized scheduling systems have been developed, which facilitate matching patients to available appointment times. However these systems often require many steps to complete the appointment scheduling process. Other prior art software scheduling systems have been developed to reduce the number of steps required for scheduling appointments by copying forward a similar old appointment to make a new appointment just like it, or by jumping into a scheduling application for scheduling a patient from a waiting list. However, these systems have limited uses and applications.
Searching for available appointment times in scheduling appointments in a typical health care environment can be very repetitive. For example, scheduling appointments for routine office visits, physicals, immunizations, flu shots, etc., requires a user to step through several prompts and display screens on a computer of a computerized scheduling system, each time entering data or searching for data, to arrive at a scheduled appointment. FIG. 1 illustrates a flow diagram of the steps required in scheduling an appointment in a health care environment using a typical prior art computerized scheduling system. In a normal computerized appointment scheduling process 10, a user enters the name of the patient into the system 12. The user then enters the type of appointment to be scheduled 14, the name of the patient's primary care physician (PCP) or health care provider 16, and the desired search dates for scheduling the appointment 18. The user may further be required to enter other information, such as insurance coverage, health care provider referrals, or other administrative data. The system then searches the provider's schedule for available appointment time slots for the desired appointment dates 20. If the provider's schedule is too full or the available appointment times are not desirable to the patient, then the user would enter the name of another provider. If the provider's schedule has available appointment time slots, then the user selects the appropriate or desired appointment time 22. The user then reviews the appointment details 24, verifies the appointment with the patient and accepts the appointment 26.
The present invention provides a system and method of searching for and scheduling appointments in a health care environment that is simpler, faster, more user friendly and more efficient than prior art scheduling systems and methods.